Some may be wondering why flights are still operating now when so little travel is occurring. This is because airlines still have flights going out with few passengers on them, purely because they don’t have smaller airlines available and the flight for those few is critical. Airlines had tried to ground flights in March and April, but airline travel is a complex system and they had a myriad of reasons not to cancel including: too many crucial bookings, moving more people on the next flight, helping the crew get to a more population destination, or getting maintenance work on a plane. Some reasons flights may still occur are due to a flight with only two people may seem unimportant, however that same plane may be flying to a destination, picking up those with essential travel going back, moving flight attendants and pilots to places with more people, or there is simply no “parking space” to leave a plane. More than 90% of traffic has disappeared overall, and on American Airlines, 99% of their flights are less than 20% full. May and June traffic has been organized to handle a lighter load, but worries of creating a limit on planes to ensure social distancing will been done through the airlines.
Link to this article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-empty-planes-keep-flying-through-the-pandemic-11588771233